Windows

Question

System boots into sleep mode

I have had two different friends in the last little bit approach me with the same problem. When they power up their PC, the monitor initially goes green, then says "going into sleep mode" then turns amber and will not wake up. The system does appear to be booting normally, but will not wake from sleep. Disconnecting the monitor wakes the monitor up (with usual connection warning). Onscreen mode works fine on the monitor, it just won't wake. I had one of them swap the LCD monitor with an older, known good CRT. It displayed the same thing - leading me to eliminate the monitor/video cable from the equation.

I have been able to get them to boot at times by holding down a key to cause an error - or by hitting F8 to go into safe mode. It may work for a while , but the problem keeps returning. I tried having them disable power management, but they are still having issues. The machines are not similar at all (one is an older e-Machines, one a couple of year old HP.) Both do run Windows XP (SP2 and SP3 respectively). I don't know the model of Video Card yet, but neither system is high end and they're likely onboard.

I am going to work on one of the systems this week and have a pretty good grasp on how I will troubleshoot it. I'll set the BIOS back to defaults, and check for a newer version. I'm going to remove the video driver and test it as a VGA card. If there is still an issue I'll replace the video card with a known good one. If the issue persists, I'll try swapping other components (RAM etc)....and eventually test with a bootable disc to remove software entirely from the equation.

So - my question - since I've had this come up twice recently and heard others say they've seen this behavior - I'm guessing this isn't that uncommon. If it's a known issue I'd love to hear the fix.

All Answers

I think you are making assumptions here that are not justified

The machines are not similar at all (one is an older e-Machines, one a couple of year old HP.) Both do run Windows XP (SP2 and SP3 respectively).

It is quite possible that they have Video Chip Sets from the same maker though they are different units. If these have NVidia Video Chip Sets it's quite possible that they are one of the Faulty Chip Sets that NVidia has made and is in the process of sorting out maybe.

But no matter what you are describing a Failed Video Chip Set that is malfunctioning or the entire computers are just failing to boot.

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